“Pi-a-no, pi-a-no”… These three syllables resonate like a slogan in Point Fort d'Aubervilliers. It is in this town of Seine-Saint-Denis, in the suburbs of Paris, that the second edition of the Pépélé Festival is taking place, the first event dedicated to amapiano in the capital.
But this is not the time to celebrate. The city has been overheating for days, mortar fire rings out on Avenida de la Division-Leclerc and the anger of residents is heard following the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager killed three days earlier by police shooting during a check. By order of the police station, the first day of the event had to be cancelled. Nothing that discouraged the organizers, who launched the festivities twenty-four hours later, on July 1st.
Once inside the 36-hectare plot, there is a change of atmosphere and decor. The approximately 4,000 festival-goers, with smiles on their faces, gather with joy and good humor, leaving the outside hustle and bustle behind, guided by one keyword: amapiano. Term that means “full of pianos” in the Zulu language, in reference to the presence of jazzy synthesizers that characterize this house music coming directly from South Africa.
A movement that finds
In the industrial desert surrounded by apartment blocks, silver panels present a parade of colorful and perfectly designed looks. O top cut It's de rigeur, baggy is back, the floral shirt wears a white tank top already decorated with flashy chains, XXL sneakers and casual platforms complete the silhouettes worthy of the Afro Nation and Notting Hill Carnival. Fairy lights illuminate the courtyard where, in the middle of this sunny summer afternoon, the percussive lines of the bass are already rising. "Inclusive AND benevolent”: two terms that have become the festival organizers’ prerogative to ensure the safety of visitors. And which appears to have naturally contaminated the Pépélé site, transforming it into safe space, for a weekend.
“Amapiano is coexistence, a collective moment of communion”, guarantees Nadim Makhlouf, 38 years old, who started the event. A depoliticized but unifying scenario, where women have their place. On the external stage, dancers in microshorts are already exciting the crowd. Afro-urban dances, giving pride of place to footwork, frenetic and syncopated movements, merge with hip-hop and dance steps. shake the booty. On the big stage, Kamo Mphela, 23, a South African from Soweto who became known for her viral dance videos posted on TikTok, sings and dances energetically to the rhythm of hypnotic loops.
Increasing on social media
Pretoria, Alexandria, Soweto… It is difficult to determine which region is responsible for the movement. “One thing is certain, it comes from marginalized communities. This can be seen in the themes of the plays where life's setbacks and difficulties are expressed comment Diyou Parisian DJ and creator of the Dawa collective. But the idea is not to dwell on it, which makes the music fun. " He is so It is impossible to date the birth of the genre, even though some place it in 2012. But we can more easily estimate its rise. The Amapiano public grew and grew, even destroyed in 2020 thanks to social media.
“Producers developed creating and publishing children on the internet during confinement, so as we began to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, new dance floors dedicated to the genre were born and really won over the public, who wanted to dance after this difficult period”, recalls Nadim. Same observation for Diyou. “In South Africa, the average lifespan of music genres is eight years. Amapiano should have suffered the same fate, except that the pandemic transferred the genre to the internet, which allowed people time to explore it, and for major record labels to see the interest and sign the artists. »
It is the first genre, after Afrobeats, to make a big breakthrough in Africa.
kwaito mix, deep house and jazz, amapiano is based on repetitive, soft and slow rhythms (from 110 to 120 BPM maximum), accompanied by ramps and a synthesized version of traditional drums. A mix that has attracted a mixed audience, uniting both the Afro community, Afrobeats fans, and electro aficionados. “At Amapiano parties the public turns to the DJ, just like at techno parties. The Ibiza scene no longer has a monopoly. Amapiano clearly fits into the electro sound, but we associate it with urban music, explains Nadim, also founder of the Casabey events studio.
The same story happens with Bbrave, a French DJ who has lived in Ghana for twelve years. “It’s a sound that can be easily found in Berlin. But it is also the first genre, after Afrobeats, that managed to spread in Africa, across the entire continent. For example, foreign music has great difficulty penetrating Ghana. I thought that afro house would find an audience, but stories that waited for amapiano to catch on”, observes the creator of the Akwaaba label, who came to mix at Cité Fértil, in Pantin, for the Amapiano Sunset Festival, organized by the Dawa collective. A success that can be explained, according to Benjamin Le Brave (his real name), by the quality of the productions. We remember the enthusiasm that there was active it revolved around gqom, a genre also affiliated with South African house. And yet the success was only stealthy and relative.
“The children were greatly modified, in fact to the dominant culture, without vocals, and exchanged via WhatsApp files by the children. That's why it didn't last. The international success of amapiano can be explained by its extremely sophisticated production. Behind children, real things are hidden beat makers, like Kabza De Small or DJ Maphorisa, a kind of South African DJ Khaled capable of identifying the stars of tomorrow”, confirms the DJ, even though he says he is already tired of a scene that he considers overvalued, undoubtedly because she knew how to find your recipe to become music with festive and commercial impact.
A pan-African movement
“Focus, we want a party” (“Foca, we want to celebrate”), shouts the Pépélé audience in front of Focalistic, 27 years old, one of the new leaders of Amapiano, who sings along happily. On stage, the singer from Pretoria declaims his lyrics in spitori, slang from his province. “It's not an official language in South Africa, but my songs reach every community in the country. It is a sound that a nation and beyond”, assures the man who traveled the world last year, from Europe to the United States, passing through East Africa and West Africa.
“I played in the DRC, an ultra-militarized country, and even so, thanks to Amapiano, I was able to celebrate”, he celebrates. We come from the same family, all over the world. Even Beyoncé released an amapiano song! » note the tube author K-star, which, since its release in 2021, has accumulated around 10 million views on YouTube. Because although apolitical, the scene distills a pan-African message. African Americans mix their R'n'B with amapiano loops; Ghanaians dye azonto with the same South African electrolayers; the same goes for Nigerians, who dare to mix afrobeats and ghetto house. And the impact doesn't just affect English speakers.
In Pépélé, as Focalistic ignites the audience, a slender figure, with a shaved head covered in hydrogen peroxide, bursts onto the stage. A well-known face to the French public. MHD, the little prince of afro trap, also measured the length of the specific and signed the title in celebrating with the one we call president you are strong (“from the ghetto”). The duo is ready to set things on fire with Fire : almost 230,000 views in just nine days. Also infected by the trend is Franco-Congolese rapper Youssoupha. He also released a tribute track to the South African genre in 2021, simply titled Amapiano. “I perceive amapiano as a way of life, a music that does not force, that flows by itself”, he analyzes in the documentary Music that Moves: Amapianoproduced by Spotify.
“When you mix amapiano with traditional Moroccan music like gnawa, it connects people. And when we introduce live instruments, they love it, because it changes the culture,” instructed Flomine, a Moroccan DJ. Even outside the continent and the diaspora, Amapiano is imitated. As proof, the Japanese of Tyo Gqom also tried the exercise. Having become one of Africa's strongest exports in commercial terms, the South African movement sees its artists on the world stage. Listening on Spotify has grown by over 563% in the last two years. With over 920 million streams as of May 2022, Amapiano titles listed on the Swedish platform have since far surpassed O millions.
The 1st scene driven by TikTok
“The amapiano is in line with previous movements, the kwaito, the gqom and especially the pantula, little reported but which was invented by South African miners who performed choreographies with their boots. This is where, in my opinion, the Amapiano movements come from”, analyzes Diyou, from the Dawa collective. Driven by young people, the scene is also a huge success on TikTok, the video-sharing app. Singers and producers, like Uncle Waffles, always accompany the release of their songs with short choreographed clips that highlight the success of the titles. The last challenge so far, that of Focalistic to promote its title “Khekheleza”, which went viral in a few days with more than 6 million views, under the hashtag “Desafio Focalistic”.
